Dr. Houser's research interests include regional land surface-atmospheric hydrologic modeling, remote sensing, surface flux observation, the application of data assimilation in hydrology, and near-surface soil moisture investigation. Dr. Houser received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Hydrology and Water Resources from the University of Arizona in 1992 and 1996 respectively. His dissertation research, titled "Remote Sensing Soil Moisture using Four-Dimensional Data Assimilation" introduced data assimilation into hydrological models, and demonstrated the benefit of including information from soil moisture observations in land-surface energy and water balance simulations. Dr. Houser's previous experience includes exploration of surface water quality issues at the U.S. Geological Survey, development of landfill cover technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory, study of fracture flow in volcanic tuff near Globe Arizona, hydrometerological instrumentation design and measurment of surface water and energy fluxes throughout Arizona, and teaching general hydrology, hydrologic field camp, and graduate hydrometerology seminar classes. Dr. Houser joined the Goddard Hydrological Sciences Branch and the Data Assimilation Office in 1997. His current research focus is: (1) land-surface data assimilation in the GSFC-GEOS model which includes global land-surface water and energy simulation, global remote sensing, and advanced data assimilation methodologies; (2) Regional land-surface data-assimilation and observational studies in the GCIP region.
A list of Dr. Houser's publications may be found here.